Sanquin, Amsterdam, Netherlands

itelligence combines its expertise in SAP technologies with its knowledge of the pharmaceutical world, providing a comprehensive solution that meets stringent European and American regulations.

Rogier van den Braak, Corporate Controller, Sanquin

Sanquin is responsible for safe and efficient blood supply in the Netherlands on a not-for-profit basis. Sanquin also develops and produces pharmaceutical products, conducts high-quality scientific research, and develops and performs a multitude of diagnostic services.

Sanquin’s more than 3,000 employees generate sales of about EUR 357 million.

Challenges and Benefits

Challenges

Improve the quality and efficiency of administrative processes

Centralize financial divisions

Benefits

Up to 10,000 fewer internal invoices per year

Five accounts payable reduced to just one, rendering 75% of records obsolete

Blood Bank's financial administration reduced from 16 to 8 FTEs

Compliance with legal requirements

Data exchange between SAP and Blood Bank IT systems reduced from three hours to eight minutes

Solution

SAP ECC

Sanquin, Amsterdam, Netherlands

How Sanquin, supplier of blood reserves as well as pharmaceutical products, and itelligence have integrated separate divisions within SAP ECC for increased efficiency.

About the Project

Vital Integration for a Vital Cause

Sanquin provides blood resources to the people of the Netherlands, and uses its research to advise hospitals and clinicians. With such a huge responsibility to its country, there is no room for inefficiency anywhere in the organization.

Yet Sanquin’s existing ERP system lacked integration. All of the company’s divisions were using the same system, but its Blood Bank always had to submit a separate financial report to the government. Because of this, Sanquin had two administrations set up in SAP: one for the Blood Bank and one for the other departments. The enterprise sought to combine them to improve efficiency.

Sanquin turned to itelligence consultants for support, as they had already served the company for many years and were already familiar with the organization. Sanquin’s decision was further influenced by their close partnership with SAP and their awareness of the pharmaceutical industry’s stringent regulations. itelligence integrated Sanquin’s separate administrations within SAP ECC through a validated SAP company code migration.

“A Positive” Outcome

Collaboration between the two companies brought the migration project to a successful conclusion within the specified timeframe of nine months and within budget. According to Rogier van den Braak, Corporate Controller at Sanquin, the project was “well thoughtout, thoroughly tested, and clearly communicated to all departments affected by the consequences.”

Reduced Workload. Improved Efficiency.

By combining two administrations, Sanquin has united four financial departments under one roof – at the head office in Amsterdam. The organization is still able to fulfill its legal requirement to file separate financial reports, but this now takes less time and effort. Costs and charted accounts are shared across its support services – including HR, maintenance, and IT – saving the company up to 10,000 internal invoices a year. And with all systems now running in English, Sanquin can report internationally and with greater efficiency.

Furthermore, the integration project has eliminated 45,000 redundant records and 100,000 obsolete rules from across the financial departments. This cleansing operation has made the company’s administrative processes considerably more efficient. Data exchange between SAP and the Blood Bank’s IT systems now takes eight minutes instead of the three hours it used to take. Overall, the project could yield savings of up to € 350,000 per year.

With itelligence’s support, Sanquin has already benefitted a great deal. But the room for improvement is what really excites Rogier van den Braak: “We obviously want to make the most of the advanced options offered by SAP ERP. Should we want to add modules, we no longer have to do so for two different administrations. This reduces the costs and time necessary for implementation by at least half.”

“We do not know the exact return on investment in advance, but it is clear that Sanquin works much more efficiently since both SAP administrations have been so smoothly merged.”

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